I Do Not Belong Here
by The Awesome Novice Writer
Summary: Struck by an unexplained event, Joel, an ordinary teenage boy, is forced into the fourteenth quarter quell. Unadapted, untrained, and centuries away from home, how will he survive the violent world of Panem? A story of friendship, survival, and belonging.
1. Awakening

It felt as if I was inside a tunnel made of pure heat. It was as uncomfortable as it was disgusting, because it stank to the high heavens and felt as if it was burning my mouth and suffocating me. It was like I a pillow was being held over my face and something was trying to kill me with that method. But they were doing a lousy job, because I could still breathe. As horrible as it was.

The heat and mild suffocation wasn't the worst that I was experiencing at the moment, it was the killer pain that was pulsing inside my head. Pain beat at the inside of my head like a drummer beating on his drums. Saying that it hurt like a mega migraine would have summed up what I was feeling, along with my mouth being stuffed with uncomfortable, hot air.

I didn't like the stuffy air that I was breathing in, so I pulled my head away from it, and felt immediate comfort as cool air was brought into my mouth. At least I wasn't really being suffocated. I laughed at that, finding the whole thing silly. _Who would want to __suffocate__ me?_

I looked down and saw a pillow that had been indented with my face print along with a soggy spot where my mouth had been. Putting two and two together, I realized that I had had my face laying on the pillow, my mouth and nose unable to get clean air into them. _So that's why I felt as if I was in heat wave._ I thought as I chuckled to myself.

As I laughed and placed my hands over my aching forehead, I wondered what happened last night.

What had I done to get this way? Normally I wouldn't be feeling this kind of pain in the morning unless I was sick, and I knew that I wasn't sick. I didn't think that people could get this sick this fast.

Just having a headache? Maybe. But one thing I did know was that I never slept with my face directly facing the pillow. I always had it on either side of my head. And wasn't it natural to turn away from something when it was suffocating you? Even when you're asleep?

I allowed myself to give out a moan as I remembered the night before. A night filled with Call of Duty, Mountain Dew, and Doritos. The house all to myself because my mom and dad were out to dinner and a late night movie at a theatre that somehow managed to stay open until four in the morning. My older brother out for the weekend with his friends, and my younger sister sleeping over at her friend's home. The house was all to myself, so I took advantage of that.

I would have called over a couple of my friends, but I knew that mom and dad were going to be home in the morning of Saturday, not Sunday night or Monday morning. So out with the friends and in with the personal me time. It was fun, but I still wished that they could have came over. It would have been much better with them around.

_Must __of__overdosed__ on __Mountain__ Dew._ I thought as I rolled over and faced the ceiling. I sighed and began to think about wither I remembered to clean my mess up or not when I noticed that I wasn't in my room. Or in my house for that matter. For one thing, the ceiling was of... Ivory? Some kind of whiteish greenish colour. My room was a sky blue colour, and the house a mustard yellow.

Panic rose through my body as I realized that I wasn't where I was supposed to be. Looking around, I saw that I was in unfamiliar territory. I wasn't in any house that I knew of.

I looked around the foreign room, and saw that it was a little like a modern home that I would see on TV sometimes, mixed in with what appeared to be a futuristic setting. A rich person's home.

But why would someone rich want me? What was there to gain from me? My parents weren't rich, they were average citizens, and so were my brother and sister. I wasn't anybody special, and neither were they. What was going on here?

I then felt myself being gently shaken around, and I wondered if I'm on a plane, or something. It must be a large plane if I have my own room that has what appeared to be a bathroom in a whole 'nother room.

Looking around, I see a clear window on both sides of me. The green-white wall had a rectangular window that showed the outside world. A world of green passing by me at incredible speed.

I turned my body over so that I was now sitting on the bed, and discovered that I wasn't on a plane at all, I was on a train. The train had been moving so smoothly that I hadn't even noticed the gentle rocking.

Okay, that answered one question, but where exactly in the hell was I? Somewhere where there were still forests. Some wild country side in the states, or hopefully, still in my Canadian homeland. I really hoped I was still in Canada so that I wouldn't have to try and sneak across the border. _Wait... If I report that I was kidnapped to the border guards, would that mean that I wouldn't have to sneak over? Could I tell them that?_

It didn't really matter if I could tell them or not, because I couldn't see any landmarks, so I didn't have any clues to my where abouts. I'd have to find a border crossing before I could tell a border guard the situation.

_Well, I'm not going to get out of here by sitting on my ass and thinking __about__ it._ Slowly, I got to my feet and found that I was still wearing my shoes. Must of forgotten to take them off after I came home from the store. Not that it mattered right now, but it saved me a minute of looking around for them.

I focused on escaping my prison, or at least finding someway to alert the police. A phone call to them was the easiest thing that I could think of. But would they be able to find me if I did manage to call them? They could trace calls couldn't they?

I looked around and discovered that there wasn't a phone to be seen in this room. _Of course not._ I though to myself. _That would of been too easy._

Okay, alerting the authorities was most likely out, since whoever kidnapped me might be the only one, or ones, that had a phone on them. So I'll focus on escaping and finding my way home from there.

Looking around, I saw a round window near the top of the door in the center of the wall away from the bed and wondered if that was the exit. I got up and looked through the glass, and saw a corridor that lead to some other room that I didn't know. But the good news was that I didn't see anyone else. I was alone. I was free to act before they discovered that I had woken up. I had to act fast, every second counted.

Looking over the room, I saw that there were drawers and closets. Most likely they contained clothes, and if I was still in Canada, I know that the May weather was still bitterly cold at times. I ran over to them and opened the drawers slowly, as to not make any noise in case whoever kidnapped me was in a room close to mine.

Inside the drawers I found pressed shirts and pants. Socks and underwear and pyjamas. Nothing useful so far. Maybe socks for mittens, but that's about it. I took a pair of the thickest socks that I could find and put them in the back pockets of my jeans before heading over to the closest.

Inside the closet I found tuxedo jackets, ties, and the likes. All fancy wear, nothing made for the outdoors. Still, I grabbed a black suit top, considering it better protection against the weather than the t-shirt I currently had on.

Placing the jacket on my body, I went over to one of the rectangular windows that was inside the room I was in, and checked to see if it could open. If I was going to escape, this was the best place to do it. Someplace where nobody would see me jump out and see that I was gone until it was too late.

Scared as I was about jumping out of a fast moving train, I feared what was going to happen if I arrived at my destination. Was I going to become part of the human trafficking industry? Organ trading? I didn't even want to think about it. I'd rather take my chances with the fall.

I reached the window and checked to see if it could be opened. I checked to see if there was a latch, if it could be pushed or pulled open. Everything I did didn't open it. I tried the other window, and found it the same way.

_Damn it. There's got to be another way._ There had to be another way, no doubt about it. But would that option be safe? I looked around the room to see if there were any other means of escaping. An air duct that I could reach if I stacked the dresser and closet on top of one another. But, it would create too much noise, and even if I managed to get everything right, it would take too long to unscrew the bolts. I didn't have the tools to open it up.

I looked at the lamp on the dresser, and thought about throwing it through the window and letting it shatter, but again, noise was a factor. Best not to attract attention in case that window's shatter proof and welded into the slots.

As much as I didn't like it, I could only see one other option: Getting out of this room and finding another way out.

I reached the door, took some deep breaths, looked through the rounded window, and saw that there was still nobody around. And even though I couldn't see them, I was still worried that they'd appear at any moment. I felt that if I opened that door, I would be spotted.

My mind started to race with thoughts of beatings and torture. Myself being the target of both. I shook my head, clearing away most of those thoughts. _Come on, Joel! You can't let some kidnappers have their way with you! Escape! Escape while you still have a beating heart inside you!_ Easier said than done, me!

I took a hold of the doorknob, feeling its smooth, cold surface and felt myself shaking. Not from the cool metal, but from my nerves. It was fear, pure and simple. I knew when I was afraid, and this was definitely one of those times.

I looked up through the round window again, and saw nobody around. I took a good look around. Still nothing.

I twisted the door handle as slowly as I allowed myself to, to a degree. I didn't want to take forever. But I did it slowly, and carefully, trying to avoid making noise. It seemed to work, because I wasn't making a sound. I felt sweat pour down my forehead and back and chest as I turned and pushed gently on the door. Worrying about the worst.

I kept thinking that any moment now, someone was going to burst in and shout at me. I could just imagine it now. 'What the hell's going on here?' They'd scream. 'I don't know!' I'd scream back with fear. 'Don't hurt me!' I'd add.

It almost made me want to give up then and there, but somehow, I managed to get the courage to continue.

I finally managed to turn the knob enough for the door to slide open, and I was surprised to find that the door opened smoothly, like it had been recently oiled and was as smooth as could be. I was now glad that I had been kidnapped by rich people rather than some dirt bag scum of the earth.

Even though the door didn't creek or squeak or anything, I kept it slow, just in case. I continued to feel the added sweat soak into my shirt and build up on my face as I constantly looked for any signs of people. I saw and heard nothing.

When I finally managed to get the door open enough for me to squeeze out, I slide out, and closed the door gently as to not make a sound.

When that was over with, I allowed myself to breathe again. I hardly breathed during that time, and I was so scared that I nearly fainted. That was just opening the door, now I had to not get caught, and find a way to get off this train.

I looked around and saw that the train was wider than the room I had been in, which was pretty amazing. This train was big, so how in the world did they manage to fit all this onto the train tracks. _Must have a very wide train track or they have a private track._ I thought as I looked around the rooms, stepping on my tip toes and creeping along like a stalker.

_This is like a game of hide and seek._ I told myself, trying to calm myself down. _Just pretend that it's Adam, or __Kayla__, trying to find you._ Yeah, but my brother and sister wouldn't kill me if they found me, I told myself as I found another room that looked exactly like mine. It had no exit, so nothing in it interested me.

I creped along the rest of the train, until I came to the end of the hallway. Hopefully an exit that I could use. Like my room, there was a door with a rounded window. I looked up and just as quickly ducked back down as I saw people inside.

I didn't get to see everything in there, but I saw men and women in that room with what appeared to be assault rifles. Some variation of the M-16? All of them wearing white body armour and white masks that hid their identity.

There was another woman in there as well. Bright coloured clothes, short and bright orange hair, and what appeared to be some kind of animal ears on the sides of her skull.

_Now my brain's really messing with me._ I told myself as I calmed down from the shock of seeing my kidnappers. _It's some kind of costume. Nobody really has cat ears. Even if they do look like they were stitched into her head._ Kind of freaky really. And for that reason, along with that she might be their leader, because she was the only one that wasn't in white and holding a gun, she scared me the most. _Avoid her at any cost._ I told myself.

I scrambled away from the door as quickly as I could. If they opened the door, at least I'd have a second to find someplace to hide. Hopefully.

I hide behind a wall and waited for a minute, wanting to see if they had seen me. I don't think they did, because after about a minute, a lifetime in my mind, the door hadn't opened and no alarms had been triggered. I breathed a sigh in relief before I continued on.

Looking around the rooms, slowly opening and closing doors, I found nothing that could aid me. Until I found a door to a small cargo area.

I entered the room and found that it had sacks of coal inside it. Sacks and sacks and sacks of coal. On those sacks was a black seal. It was circular and had two different layers, like a toonie, but it was the same colour for both layers except for the outlining that showed what was within it.

At the top of the outer layer, I read the word: District. In the inner circle I saw a hardhat with two crossing pickaxes over a mine cart. On the lower area of the outer circle I read the number: 12.

District Twelve. Coal. What the hell did that mean? Was I about to be transported to this District Twelve and mine coal for the rest of my life? Like those diamond miners in Africa?

Shit. This was bad. I had read the history of coal mining, and I had visited a museum that replicated what coal mining was like, but unlike the people who actually mined, we had enough space to stand and walk comfortable and had fresh air that we could breathe in. Not to mention that there was no chance of a cave in.

It was a pretty shitty job, but one that they did willingly. Or unwillingly if you really wanted to think about it that way, since they didn't have much of a choice. Work or starve.

But if this was anything like the African workers, than I wasn't going to go in there willingly, and I would get beaten if anything went wrong and be starved so that I could fit in tighter spaces. I would be there until I died.

No way was I going to be sold to some coal mine owner. I was getting out of here and get back home.

Looking past the bags of coal in the plain, metallic room, I saw a door, much like those that slide open on the side of a large truck or a van. I ran over to it and, without thinking, pulled the lever and pushed it open, only to fall on my butt for three reasons.

One was because I got scared. The second was because the howling wind and the speed this train was traveling scared me and I almost had a heart attack falling out. I would of probably of been sucked out of the train if I hadn't fallen over. But the thing that made me the most scared was the fact that a loud alarm was now blaring out from what seemed like everywhere.

_Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Oh fuck!_ My mind screamed as I slowly got to my feet, my legs shaking like crazy. I pushed the door the rest of the way opened, and felt myself falling forwards.

Feeling the full force of the rushing wind, I was being pulled out of the metal box and found myself rapidly getting closer to the tracks. I managed to reach out and grab a vertical holding rail at the edge of the open door way to avoid getting splattered. The rush of air flowing through my entire body was strong, and it was almost like being in the middle of a wind storm.

Through my heart beating so hard that I thought it would jump out of my chest, thought to myself that people fighting and moving on the tops of high moving trains in the movies was a load of bull shit. I was having enough trouble holding onto the side of the train, with support. I was gripping the rail with all my might, and I still didn't know if I would be able to hold on for very much longer. I couldn't imagine running on top of this, or even getting on top of this as it moved.

I pulled myself up and away from the ground before I fell on my stomach. With my legs still out of the train, I crawled up and kicked with all my strength, not wanting to become rail kill.

When I managed to get a safe distance from the open door, I rolled myself over and sat on my butt and allowed myself to recover.

Breathing heavily from shock and a near death experience, I forced myself up yet again.

_Holy fuck, Joel! Look at how fast this thing's going! No way you can jump out this an-_

"Freeze asshole!" A loud and authoritative voice shouted out. It sent chills down my spine, and I couldn't help but turn to see who said that. I craned my head, and saw that it was one of those white uniformed guys with the masks on. He was pointing his weapon right at me, his right eye straight down the sights. I had no doubt that he'd shoot me without hesitation. It made me feel weak, sick, and scared. "Step away from the door and come towards me!" He commanded.

I immediately did as he instructed. I did not want a bullet in the back of my head. I backed away from the open door, away from impossible freedom, and stepped backwards towards him, watching him and his assault rifle.

Sweating the entire way, I started to wonder if he was a mercenary. The way he held that gun, the way that he used his voice, I thought of cops and soldiers. I suddenly knew that I had no chance against him, so I might as well give in.

The back of my feet hit something large and big and I nearly fell to the floor, again. But I managed to stop myself before I fell completely. I looked behind me to see that I had almost tripped on a bag of coal.

Looking at that bag of coal made me think of where this merc was going to take me. To some black market where he, the other mercs, and their female leader, were going to sell me to. I would then be subjected to a life of slavery, mining coal for the rest of my days in horrific conditions where human rights were nothing but a wish. Looking at that bag of coal, I had to wonder if I wanted to spend the rest of my life wondering if I wanted to die of starvation, a cave in, or the black lung.

_I don't want to die._ I told myself. But if I disobeyed him, he'd shot me. If I stayed, I'd be sold into a mining camp. How did I want to die?

I looked at the gun in the hands of a trained killer. I looked at the forestry that was moving like a film reel. Back to the gun, and back to the forestry. Where did I want to go?

As much as I'd like to take the easy way out, a part of my mind yelled out. _I'd rather die free!_

Before I could even think, and regret my decision, I ran towards the forest, and jumped out of the moving locomotive.

For a split second, I felt as free as an eagle. The air, the rush, the freedom. _So this is what it's like to be a bird._ I thought. But then another thought came just as quickly as fear and realization came to me in the form of landing. _I __immediately__ regret this!_

The next thing I knew, I was facing a world of exploding bright colours in front of the rapidly changing scenes of close ups of dirt, far shoots of the sky, the upside down forest, and my body tumbling about. I also felt pain. Immense, burning, screaming, beyond anything that I ever encountered pain that shot through my body like lighting.

"GR! GRA! UGH! PHJT! KAGHT! IHCTCG! NAH! MTFFHT! DAH! YHG! OVFTH! LGK!"

I rolled I don't know how many times, but I didn't even stop rolling, because I couldn't stop rolling, when I realized something. _My fucking arm!_ My arm was broken. Pain coursed through it like shards of hot glass through my blood stream. And those weren't my only injuries. My sides hurt, my face hurt, my legs hurt, my ass hurt, hell, everything god damn hurt.

I stopped rolling and felt uncomfortable warmth and stinging through out my body. I tasted sick metallic in my mouth.

_Come on, Joel! Got to get up! Got to get up!_

I tried to pick myself up, but my whole body was on fire so badly that I couldn't move without screaming for mercy.

I couldn't believe this, nothing like this ever happened on TV! The heroes would dive out of a moving train, get their clothes wrecked, maybe even get a couple of scrapes or bruises, but they wouldn't get their fucking arm broken, or say how much it hurt. They said that as long as you landed on your shoulder and rolled, you'd be all right. Well I did that, and everything hurt to hell and back!

I tried to pick myself up again, only to feel the rushing of pain as I started to feel sick for real. I managed through excruciating pain, to get to my knees, which burned when I put them on the ground, and start coughing a volcanic cough. It was like a vice was in my chest, and every time I coughed, or even breathed, it would tighten.

My vision was blurred, but I through it I thought I saw thick red snakes slithering out of my mouth. _Is that- Is that blood?_

SSSQQQQUUUUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

Shit, they were stopping the train. I didn't have much time left.

Don't trains take a couple of kilometres to stop? Yes they did, but it didn't have to stop completely for the mercenaries to jump off, just enough. And if they were soldiers or police officers, which I was pretty sure they had been before turning merc, I was in trouble. It wouldn't take them much time to close the distance between the two of us.

I tried to get up, but my whole body seemed to just want to stay where it was. Too much pain to move, too much pain to even sit up. It just wanted to lay down and rest. To heal. We didn't have time for that!

_Get up!_ I screamed, wanting them to get me out of here. _Get up! We can rest later!_

I continued to push, but they stubbornly refused to listen to me.

_I don't want to be a coal miner!_ I told my body, feeling like I was going to cry. _Please get up!_

Again, nothing. Too much pain. They wanted to stay.

_GET UP GET UP GET UP GET UP!_

I felt sudden agony explode over the side of my head as I fell down like a corpse. And in all retrospect, I probably should be one.

I couldn't help but look up towards the sky and see a gloomy, grey clouded day. Looked like a rainstorm was going to happen. _So much for a __beautiful__ last sight._ My brain told me before I began to feel something hard slam against my body. Pain exploded through my unbroken left arm, which I couldn't even put up in defence. This was not fair.

I saw a flash of black before I was blinded by pain and flashing colours. Another wave of pain appeared in my right ribs, then my stomach, than my ribs again. I couldn't move my arms, but I managed to roll over onto my side take the beating there.

The metal weapon continued to bash me in the side of my body. It hit my shoulder, liver, back, ass, hip, everything that was the upper part of me that I exposed to it. Maybe I should of just gave in to the merc and saved me this brutality.

As he continued to assault me, I thought of how I was never going to see my family and friends again.

I was never going to my taste my mom's waffles ever again, or hear about my dad's boring day at the office again. I was never going to bug my brother about his choice in cutting hair as a job, or annoy my sister's boyfriend ever again. I also wasn't going to play video games with my friends ever again. And even worse, and I can't believe that I'm thinking this, but I'll never be able to finish high school. I was so close too. Two months, that was all that was left. Two months towards a sort of freedom.

Every dream that I had, everything that I had worked so hard for. It was all going to be gone soon. This guy was going to kill me, for refusing to cooperate with him. Probably to set an example for all the other people he kidnapped. Whatever the reason he was hurting me for, I just wanted it to end.

He continued to pound me with his metallic weapon, and I continued to take it, because I couldn't do much else. It was pathetic. How long would it take for me to die? Dying shouldn't be this painful. Should it?

Should I feel like an inflated balloon? Should I feel as if everything inside of me is broken? Shouldn't I of died of shock? Or at least passed out?

Everything started to become more and more painful, and all I could do was yell out in for and shout for mercy.

I should be crying. I felt like crying, but no tears came out for some reason.

"That's enough," I heard a high pitched female voice with a weird accent call out. The brutal assault stopped after what seemed like a millennium. "We need him alive."

I let out a sigh in relief before I passed out. The attack had stopped.

I was going to live.


	2. History Lesson

To say that I woke up feeling right as rain again would make me a liar. A big one at that.

I hadn't yet opened my eyes when I felt the blinding agony of what had happened before I had blacked occur. It was all I could do to not shout out in pain, and even then I felt myself groaning, at least. My right arm, everything from shoulder down, felt as if it was being melted by slow burning acid.

I hugged my injured arm, and felt that it was wrapped in something thin. There wasn't a lot of it, but it caused my arm to hang up at chest level. I forced my eyes open and, through a blur of lines and grey, found that my arm was in a sling and had a couple of splints wrapped around my forearm and bicep. I cradled my arm, trying to comfort it the best I could. It helped a little, even if it was only in my mind.

"Well now," A very familiar voice sounded out, causing the pain to dull a little as I felt my body lose some of its heat. It was that merc that had beaten me and threatened to shot me. I didn't like that I was hearing that voice. "Look who's awake."

Suddenly, I felt a hand roughly clamp onto the back of my neck as another hand forced my uninjured left hand behind my back. I yelled out curses as pain exploded through out my body before I felt myself being forced to walk forwards. I didn't resist, I wasn't in the mood for defiance and I didn't want to let myself relive that brutality either.

Through the burning pain in my legs, I found myself being walked out of the room that I had first woken up in, out the door, and down the corridor. It wasn't until we reached the end of the hall did I realize that we were going into that place that I had first seen this guy and his friends. I was going into their headquarters.

He stopped just before the door before he turned the latch and used my body to burst into the room. I screamed out in pain and would have fallen to the floor if it weren't for him holding me up with his iron grip. "The tribute has awaken." The merc announced.

"Excellent." The strange accented woman answered delightfully. She didn't sound as rough and tough as the white uniformed forces, and her voice didn't give me the chills, but that still didn't mean that I wasn't scared of her. I felt that she was the one in charge and could have him execute me with a simple command.

I kept my head down, thinking that it was safer than looking up. I didn't dare look up in case she didn't like the way that I looked at her. "I just want you to know that this will be punishment for you as well if you dare try anything."

Who was she talking to? Was there another person like me here? I thought of the room that was identical to mine, and found myself feeling guilty that I hadn't thought of checking it out for just a few seconds more. If I had, I would of probably of seen him, or her, where ever the boy or girl had been.

If I had seen them, maybe I could have gotten their help, and we could of both of thought of something. I felt bad that I had tried to abandon him or her to these people, but with the fact that my escape failed and the way I was feeling, it was probably better that I hadn't involved him or her.

_At least they don't feel like a broken jigsaw puzzle._ I thought to myself, feeling both stupid and a little bit better that whoever was in front of me didn't have to feel my pain.

"I would never try to escape." Their voice told the accented woman. A girl's voice.

I looked up and found that my vision was more circular than I remembered it to be. But what I could see was now clear, and I was grateful for that, it meant that I wasn't going blind. I hope.

Looking towards where the younger girl's voice had came from, I found the body that the sound had came from, and was shocked at what I saw. The girl that was sitting on a plush leather sofa looked almost like a holocaust victim, but not as bad. She was so thin that her arms looked little more than match sticks while I could see the ribs around the parts of her dress that exposed her unhealthy body.

She looked to be around fourteen. Whatever I was getting into, she was going to have it so much worse than me. _I can't see her coal mining._ I told myself. _She wouldn't last a week in that condition._

I was eighteen and better fed than her, and I probably wasn't going to last much longer. _She's probably going to be sold cheaply, or sold as something else._ I horrifically thought.

"Good, good." The leader woman said happily. "We wouldn't want to another one of our tributes to end up injured, do we?" The way she said that question so casually got me to think that she did this for a living. That she had done it many, many more times before. And the way that that girl was acting so calmly told me that she was also used to this happening. She had probably been a work slave before her owners found no more use for her. Wanted to get rid of her while they were still ahead. While she was still worth something.

But what was this all about? Tributes? What were we going to be? A gift to someone?

Taking a second look at the girl, I couldn't see her being much. Too weak to do any kind of physical work. The only thing that I could think of was her being one of those sex slaves that young woman were usually in the trafficking businesses for.

She had straight black hair, olive skin that were tight in some places due to scaring, and brown eyes. She was also kind of dirty with light black smears over her body, kind of like dark dust that refused to come off. The dust was thicker in some places all over her tired body. It came to a surprise to me that her light green dress was something that looked like it had just been bought from the store.

Aside from thinking that she could benefit from a shower, I wondered about this entire thing. This kidnapping. Tributes. Everything. But I didn't dare speak, just in case I got hit again, which was the last thing I wanted. "You can let him go now." The woman said, right before the man let go of me and I collapsed to the floor, only to feel lighting spread through my body as I screamed out in agony. It felt as if my arm had been broken again! "And someone get him some medicine to heal him up, we don't want him to look this bad when he reaches the Capitol." Why the hell does she say everything like it's a question?

"Yes Ma'am." Another merc said before I heard his heavy footwear walk past me. He could have at least helped me up. Jerk.

_These hired grunts aren't going to help me, so I'll just get up on my own._ I told myself as I rolled over onto my left side and tried to push myself up, but utterly failed as waves of misery took over my arm and body and caused me to fall back onto my stomach, causing even more misery to arrive. Damn it! I couldn't even get up by myself! I was totally at their mercy, and there was nothing I could do about it. I should of never and tried to jump out of this train, it was a fucking stupid idea.

_Way to go, Joel! You try to act like a hero, and this is where you end up._ Some hero.

I tried again, with the same result. I considered just staying on the floor when I felt something grab me and start to pull me to my feet. I didn't fight it, I wasn't in the mood to move if I didn't need to.

But I quickly found out that it wasn't one of the woman's goons getting me up, it was that scrawny girl. I knew because I heard her grunting over my dead weight, and the fact that she was picking me up a lot slower than they could of. But the thing that made me sure that it was her, was because her hands weren't rough, they were gentle and soft.

She was having trouble picking me up, so despite the agony, I helped her pick me up. It became easier for her, and soon, I was on my feet, and she was guiding me towards the couch that she had been sitting in.

She turned me around, allowing me to face away from the couch, and dumped me onto the leathery material, which stung like hell. I yelled as the entire right side of my body screamed at me as it hit the furniture.

"Sorry," The girl squealed, like she had just seriously hurt me. "Sorry."

"You didn't hurt me." I told her through my clinched teeth. God damn, I needed some pain killers.

"Still," She said guiltily.

"Its fine." I told her before I, the best I could, turned to the woman that was in charge, and even though I couldn't see her, I asked her. "Where are you taking us? Ottawa? Washington D.C? Whatever the Capital of Mexico is?"

The entire train seemed to silence as the question sank in. Like it was some sort of secret or something. _If it was supposed to be so secret, why did you advertise it?_ I thought as the silence continued to roll over.

"What are you talking about?" The woman asked, seeming legitimately confused. "Ottawa? Washington? Mexico? What are those things?" Was this woman retarded? How could she not know where any of those places were?

"The Capital of Canada? The Capital of the United States? What do you mean you don't know where Mexico is?" Again, silence engulfed the room. It made me feel as if I was in Africa, trying to explain where Alberta was without a map. I looked around the room, seeing that everyone, even the young girl, looked like they didn't know what I was talking about. "Doesn't anyone know where anything in North America is?"

"Kid," The woman sighed, like I had asked a stupid question. "I don't know where you got those names from, but this is North America, the only place still alive in this world."

_What!_ My mind screamed. _The only place still alive in the world? That's not possible, there are other places still alive in the world. The world was still alive when I was playing video games last night. What, did I miss a nuclear crisis as I shot __virtual__ terrorists or something?_

"You're lying." I told her. "Europe and Asia are still going strong, and so are the other continents."

"I don't know if that beating gave you brain damage or something, but whatever you're talking about, there's none of it around." This woman... I mentally grunted angrily. This woman was toying with me. She was just trying to annoy me.

"Then answer this," I said, wanting to know another question. "Where am I going and what the fuck's going on?"

I heard the woman gasp out in shock as I heard the sound of metal sliding against metal. It made me regret ever asking that question, despite how I couldn't see what was wrong with it.

"I'm going to warn you just once young man," The woman hissed. "You will not use that language around me."

"What?" I asked, confused by what she meant? "Fuck?" A blunt object hit me square in the ribs as I screamed from the pain. It felt as if my ribs had broke.

"Yes." She continued to hiss. "That word. It's filthy and immoral." _That's funny, coming from a human __trafficker__._

"Medicine's here Ma'am." That goon who went after the medicine announced as he made his way back into the room.

"Thank you," The woman said. "Now you can heal him up and we can be on our way."

Heavy boots came towards me before I heard the loud and saw the slamming of a medicine box in front of me. The uniformed thug opened the case and pulled out a small jar of something before a voice called out.

"Wait!" It came from that girl. I could sense that everyone was looking at her. I would have looked at her if I wasn't in so much damn pain. "Umm..." She said, nervous now that everyone was looking at her. Or at least trying to. "Let me do it. He... Might not have the best of feelings towards you." No, I didn't. But that didn't mean that you knew more about medicine than him.

The hired gun just grunted before he seemed to shove the jar into the girl's skinny hands before he walked away.

I then saw the girl walk in front of me before she crouched down, opening the jar, which revelled a clear cream like substance, like Vaseline. "What's your name?" She asked kindly as she dipped her fingers into the cream.

"Why?" I asked stupidly, through the newfound pain in my ribs.

"I just want to know who I'm helping." She said, stirring her fingers around in the clear substance as I mentally banged me head. _She's being nice to you, Joel! She's in the same situation as you, and you__'re__ going to act like an asshole? She's not your enemy._

"Joel." I answered, not even bothering to come up with a lie. "Yours?"

"Charity." She told me. _Weird__ name._ I thought, but I wasn't going to say that to her face. She then pulled her fingers out of the cream and started to smear it around my face. It was cool and felt nice on my aching flesh. It must have been powerful stuff, because I felt my pain numb a little and it felt as if it was healing me at an unrealistic pace. Her, surprisingly smooth fingers helped me relax. "I can tell you're confused and scared about this situation."

"You think?" I told her sarcastically, though it was lost on her because she answered.

"Yes, I do." She said as she spread the cream from my face to my chest. I felt uncomfortable with a girl touching me like this, but she didn't even seem to care. She was like a nurse with a victim. Professional, not fazed by anything. I looked away from her olive toned arm as it went down my shirt. "So I'm going to skip the history lesson and ask you something. Do you remember the quarter quell announcement?"

_Never even hear of it._ I thought as I answered honestly.

"No."

"They announced that for the fourteenth quarter century of the rebellion, to remind the rebels that no matter where they hide, the Capitol will find them, the tributes of this year shall be taken from their homes. Reaped without warning." She gave a little chuckle. "You can hide, but no matter where you hide, we will find you."

None of this made sense. Reaping? Rebellion? What was this?

"I don't get it." I told her, feeling stupid for it, but needing to ask.

I heard the woman sigh loudly with annoyance and frustration.

"Lookie here, we got our self a retard." She said, like I wasn't even there. I was about to tell her that I wasn't retarded, but managed to hold my tongue. Partly because I didn't want to get hit, mostly because Charity started to talk again.

"I'm sorry that you don't understand." She told me kindly. "So I'll just up and tell you, see if that'll jog your memory." I didn't think that anything was going to jog my memory, but I was going to let her tell me anyway. I just wanted to know where I was going and what I was going to have to go up against.

Charity started to rub my back with the cream when she told me. "Basically, you and me have been chosen to participate in the fourteenth quarter quell. The three hundred and fiftieth annual Hunger Games." _Hunger Games? It must be some kind of food contest. That's why she looks so this. So that you can fit more food into you. _ "A fight to the death between twenty fo-"

"WHAT?" I practically roared as I processed the words 'fight to the death.' Pain momentarily forgotten, until it hit me like a jackhammer, and I had to fight down a shout. Charity practically jumped in the air as I straighten my body up, almost making Charity fall over due to her hand not getting out of the back of my shirt in time. "What d- Did you just say?" I sure hoped that I heard her wrong.

"The Hunger Games." Charity repeated. "Every year, twenty four tributes come together to be presented on live television to fight to the death." _HOW COULD SHE SAY THAT SO CASUALLY?_

"R- R- Really?" I asked, hoping to God that she was joking. The nod in her head told me that she wasn't joking. I looked around, and saw that nobody else was laughing, though it was hard with the masked thugs to tell what their expressions were. _Jesus __Christ__!_ Escaping didn't seem that foolish now.

I freaked out for a little bit. After all, it was more than a little hard for me accept that I had been kidnapped to go fight twenty four other kids on live TV. What was this? Some sort of sick reality show? I could imagine the advertisements for the show. 'No story line, no drama, no actors, just straight up kids killing kids.'

Needless to say, it took a while for me to calm down with the help of Charity. She told me to breathe in and out slowly, to clear my head, to relax, to look at her as she told me to repeat words after her. She got me to do each of those things until she deemed me able to move on.

When I had finally calmed down enough, Charity continued to rub the cream on my injured body. I allowed her to take my shirt off and for her to roll up the legs of my jeans, but that was as far as I'd allow it. I'd rub the rest of me myself without everyone else watching.

As she worked, I saw that Charity could have been a nurse in training due to her professional manner and the way that she handled the needle that would mend my fractured arm and shoulder. All the medicines must have had some kind of numbing agent, because I wasn't in as much pain as before. I was grateful for the help.

Through dinner, I learned that Charity was from a place called District Twelve, a place where coal was mined. Through that, I learned that Charity lived in the Seam, the poor part of District Twelve. And when she said poor, I could see that she meant poor. Her body told just how much poverty there was in District Twelve.

Charity also explained what the Capitol was. Turns out that their kind of government is a dictatorship run by a man named President Steel, the ruler of Panem, which is basically what's left of North America due to natural disasters that happened centuries ago. I had to wonder what was past the shadow of Panem. What was beyond the district fences? Another civilization? Several?

Panem for the most part was all anyone seemed to know, and care about. Exploring beyond it was no concern to them, and for good reason. Their birth place in Panem, District Twelve in Charity's case, was just about the only place that she knew about, and that was because she wasn't allowed to step foot outside her district. Kept inside due to an electrically charged fence that ran all day and all night, she, and everyone else in District Twelve, was trapped inside. Anything else they knew little of besides the industries.

The Capitol ruled the districts with firm laws that required them to send in supplies. The coal that the miners in her district worked so hard for in District Twelve's case. The Capitol also required that each year, that one boy and one girl, all aged between twelve and eighteen, be selected to participate in the annual Hunger Games from each district.

Twelve districts, twenty four kids. Would of been twenty eight, but a thirteenth district got destroyed during the their rebellion and the Capitol doesn't need to send their kids in.

Why did the Hunger Games start? Because the citizens were sick of living under the Capitol's rules and rebelled, which I thought was pretty stupid. The Capitol gave you safety, law and order, a place to live, and you repay them by throwing a rebellion. But I guess like the medieval days, there came a point where enough was enough. Or even in even more recent days where the citizens rebelled against their leaders because of starvation. Like the French and Russian revolutions.

The districts lost the rebellion, and because of that, they were punished with the Hunger Games, a reminder of their loss.

Now that I knew basically what I needed to know about the history of Panem, Charity was now teaching me about the Hunger Games themselves.

"The twenty four tributes all get about a week in the Capitol before they are thrown into the arena." She explained to me as she bit into her food. I saw that she was trying hard to restrain herself from just diving into the food in front of her, and I couldn't blame her. She could use more food in her diet, and because she was starving, she needed that food. Not only that, but the food smelt delicious. There was food there that I didn't even know what they were.

Charity was probably afraid that if she pissed off our escort, a member of the Capitol that was tasked with escorting the tributes to and through the Capitol as well as normally in charge of choosing the names of the normal reapings, she'd end up like me. Rightfully so, I said a swear word in front of her and she had one of the peacekeepers, their version of law keepers, hit me across the ribs. The escort, that I still hadn't yet looked at, expected manners and civility. What a laugh, considering that she was excited for the games. "It's there that we fight to the death until one remains."

_What was this? The Roman __colosseum__?_ The more I thought about it, it sounded just like a modern day gladiator pit. "The arena can range from anything from a burning wasteland to a freezing tundra. But as important the arena is, the thing that makes or breaks the game itself are the tributes."

"So, what?" I asked. "Boring tributes equal a boring game?"

"In a way." She told me. "What I mean are their tactics, and their willingness to kill." Charity continued to eat, but wouldn't dare talk with her mouth full, so she had to chew and swallow before she talked, despite how much I could see that she wanted to talk and eat at the same time. "You see..." She stopped to think for a little bit before continuing. "Let's use a recent winner. This girl won by climbing up a tree, leaping down from it onto unsuspecting victims, killed them, dragged their body away, climbed back up, and repeated the whole thing over again."

"That game had so much potential," Our escort commented harshly. "But it was ruined because of that girl. The same thing over and over again. It was good the first time, but after that. Couldn't she of thought of something else to do instead of the same thing time and time again?"

_I'd choose survival over pleasing you any day._ I thought bitterly. That girl won because she was smart, not entertaining. She did what she had to do.

"And then there's the tributes that don't want to kill each other," Charity continued, pretending that our escort hadn't spoken. "The games would get no where if nobody wanted to kill each other. Luckily for the audience, there's the career tributes."

"Career tributes?" I asked as Charity stuffed a gravy soaked piece of bread into her mouth.

"That's right," She said when she finished swallowing. "Tributes that make their careers in the games. They're almost always victors due to their knowledge of weapons and them teaming up with each other." _Like a pack of wolves. Alone they are deadly. Together, they dominate._ "We call them the career pack, and they almost always win." _Figures._

"So why don't you learn about the weapons at home and ally with some other people as well?" I asked her. "If they can do it, so can you."

"No, we can't." She told me calmly, though I could sense an edge in her voice. "The careers have always known how to use weapons, even before the rebellion. They're already fighters. Some other districts have their weapon choices. For example, District Seven is a lumber district, so they'll know how to use hatchets and axes. District Nine is grain, a grain harvesting tool of some kind."

"A scythe?" I asked, thinking of farmers.

"Sure, let's go with that."

"What about District Eight? What kinds of weapons could they use?"

"They're a textile district. What do you think they can do? Run up to them and stab them with a needle?" _Maybe._ "Some districts just don't have people that know how to use weapons, Joel, they just don't."

"Like your district?" I asked.

"For some stupid reason, my district won't allow you to mine until you're nineteen. Too old to be in the arena. Otherwise we'd be stronger from the mining and know how to swing a blunt weapon better." _At least they __have__ some kind of child __safety__ law._ I thought as Charity continued the lesson. "Look, Joel, I know that this is a lot to take in since you don't seem to know anything, but just try to imagine that not every district knows how to fight and use weapons. Okay."

"Yeah." I told her. Some districts were better prepared than others.

"Good." She stuffed some more food into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed before she placed some manila folders in front of me. "There were no reapings this year, so we won't be able to see how they reacted, but we will be able to see who was chosen. The only thing that I find good about this reapings is that no careers volunteered."

"They volunteer for this?" I asked, shocked that anyone would consider going into a fight to the death arena willingly.

"Of course." She told me, like it was obvious. "After all, if you win and become a victor, you will become a very rich person, become very famous, and gain glory. Also, your district will be showed with gifts each month for an entire year. So, winning will help both you and your district, not that the careers need the help though."

"Maybe they do need it Charity," I told her, thinking of how her district was so poor they couldn't afford to give her a full balanced meal. "What if they're just like you?"

"They are not like me." She growled, and I could tell that the topic wasn't something that she liked. "They are not poor because they have Capitol support. They have enough food and medicine that they don't have to live like us. Just take a look at the career profiles and see for yourself. They're the boys and girls in Districts One, Two, and Four."

"What about Three?" I asked, wondering why it skipped over from Two to Four.

"They just aren't." She told me. "I don't think technology makes a fighter as much as a fishing district does." _That would explain it._

Looking at the manila folders that Charity had flopped in front of me, I opened up the first one and saw a mug shot of a handsome looking guy. Blond haired, green eyed, and with an athletic body, he was someone that the girls would flock to and would try to get his attention.

Behind his paper clipped picture was a profile of him. It showed his name, his district, his height and weight, all the basic information that could have been in a police record profile.

His name was Price, and he was a year younger than me at seventeen years old.

"Is this guy in the games with us?" I asked.

"Yes he is," Charity told me. "He's a career, so he's someone that you should watch out for."

I looked at the profile, and had a feeling that his profile had been cut short, so I went to the next file, and found a girl that was so breath takingly beautiful that she would have put some teen models to shame. She had what seemed to be perfect milky skin with a pretty face and blond hair that was like sunshine. Her pale green eyes also seemed to sparkle. She was by far, the prettiest girl I had ever seen in my life.

Her name was also as beautiful as the girl herself. Radiance. A bit strange, but a great name, really. But as I looked at her and Price's names, I noticed something. Their last names weren't mentioned.

"Why are their last names not on here?" I asked.

"Confidential reasons." The escort told us. I had to wonder what those reasons were for.

As I went through the profiles, I noticed that there were a lot of odd names that seemed to pop up. In fact, everything except Raven, the girl from District Nine, Buck, the boy from District Ten, and to a lesser extent, Grey, the boy from District Two, everyone had strange names. I mean, who names their kid Revolist, or Magnet, or Harvest? "Anyone stand out to you?" Charity asked me when I was done looking through all the profiles.

"Everyone stands out to me," I told her, thinking of all their names. It was pretty hard to forget them. "I mean, their names are like... Who names their child that?"

"They seem pretty normal to me." She said, looking at their open profiles that were laying spread out on the table. "I mean, if anything, I think you have the strange name. Joel."_ Must be normal names around this time period._ I thought as Charity scanned the profiles.

"Where I came from, my name was quite normal."

"I see..." She said, with genuine fascination. "Anyway, besides their names, anyone stand out to you?"

I looked over the pictures again, and pointed out a few.

"Radiance." I told her, looking at her picture again wondering how a girl could possibly be that great looking without the effects of photoshop. "Grey." He was the same age as me, but he was so much bigger than I was.

He was from District Two, and with the broadest shoulders I had ever seen on a teenager along with huge muscles that reminded me of a body builder, he was someone that I didn't want to mess with. Brown skinned and short, dark coloured haired with challenging brown eyes, he looked like a twenty year old looking for a fight.

I pointed to another picture. "Codone." This kid was from District Six, and at eighteen years old, he looked like someone older, in a bad way. He was pale, had greasy brown hair with confused blue eyes that had purple sags underneath. And much like almost all the other non-career kids, he was unhealthily thin, though not as much as Charity.

Moving to another picture, I said. "Raven." A District Nine girl with black hair and a dark skin tone, I guessed that she was of Native American decent. Square faced with eyes that looked much too big for her, I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. She had gotten forced into this fight far too young at thirteen. "Those are the four that stand out the most in my mind."

I didn't tell Charity that she was another one that had gotten my interest because of her age. She was seventeen years old, yet, she looked like she was fourteen. I guess that's what malnutrition does to your body.

"My advice to you is to study the careers and look for potential allies." Charity explained to me. "Allies can increase your chances of survival. The careers, you want to study them so that you can see first hand how dangerous they can be, since you need to see what you're going to be going up against."

I didn't have to see them showing off to see why the careers normally win the Hunger Games. For one, they didn't even seem hungry. The boys from Districts Two and Four were way bigger than me, while Price, from District One, while not as big as his allies, looked just as much of a fighter. The girls were also better feed and tougher looking than the lady victims of poverty.

As for allies, I wanted someone that I could trust. Someone that wouldn't stab me in the back the second I showed it to them. And right now, there was only one person that I trusted enough to allow that.

"Want to be allies, Charity?"

"You want to be allies with me?" Charity asked, seemingly shocked by my question.

"Yeah. Sure." I told her, wondering why she was even surprised. She seemed like a good person to me. "Why not?"

"I- It's just that-" She stopped before she shook her head. Clearing her thoughts away from the looks of it. "Why me?" I shrugged my shoulders, seeing that it was obvious why we should be allies.

"You're the only one that's helped me so far." I told her. "You seem like a good person, and I'd like to keep on learning from you. And if I can help you in anyway, I would gladly to it." Charity seemed taken aback by that, and it was strange to see her like that. She was helping me out, why shouldn't I help her back.

"R- Really?" She asked. I smiled towards her.

"Really really." I told her.

I then saw her smile at me, and even though her body or face wasn't that attractive, her smile seemed to make up for that. She was astonishingly great teeth.

"Okay." She said happily. "Allies."


	3. Chariot

Sleep didn't come easy for me. Aside from thinking about how I was either in an alternate reality or sometime in the future, there were other thoughts attacking me during the night. How did I get here? Why am I here? How do I get back home? Does anybody back where I belong know about this? And the thing that haunted my thoughts the most were the Hunger Games. The thoughts of fighting in the arena like a gladiator from Ancient Rome wasn't a pleasant thought.

The bed was soft though, and the cream that got spread across me soothed my pain some. Still, it wasn't enough to make the thoughts disappear.

North America, destroyed by floods, wildfires, earthquakes, with only Panem and the wilds remaining. Twelve districts, an all powerful Capitol, and a radioactive wasteland of a thirteenth district. Poverty ravaging most of the nation. A game where kids fight to the death.

It was almost hard for me to believe. Last night, I was just playing video games, now I was a few days away from fighting for my life.

For Charity, it was normal for her, because she had lived in this reality her entire life. She belonged here. But I wasn't from here. I knew only of what Charity told me. I lived in a different world, a place where you didn't starve to death. A place where kids didn't have to worry about fighting to death. A place where our government didn't force us into poverty. A place that was known a Canada. I didn't belong here. But here I was, for whatever reason, on this train to the Capitol with no explanation on how I ended up here.

This quarter quell, they took kids from their homes. I had to wonder if they were awake when they got kidnapped. Were their parents awake? Did their parents fight back? Did the kids fight back? Did they try to escape? Why did they get picked? Was it just bad luck that these kids got picked? Or did they get picked for a reason?

I guess it didn't matter one way or another, they were here now and that was that. As for me, how did they find me? Did I somehow teleport into the train? Or did they pick me off the streets of District Twelve? And what about the guy that was originally supposed to be picked, if there had been one. Did I switch places with him? Was he now enjoying my life? Wondering how he ended up in a place that was better than his?

So many questions, little to no answers. I tried not to think about them and just get to sleep, but they continued to plague my mind. I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to arrive.

"WAKE UP!" A booming voice barked, startling me awake as I leaped into the air, throwing my arms every which way before I landed hard on the floor. I had time to process that it was somehow morning, despite feeling as if I got no sleep, and that my right arm was stiff and sore, but no longer broken. A sigh of relief before. "WAKE THE FUCK UP!"

I was fully awake due to that peacekeeper's shouting, and was now wondering what I should do. "Get on your feet!" He shouted. "Get on your god damn feet!" Not even thinking about it, I scrambled to my feet, finding his voice intimidating and just finding the general need to obey him. Much like how soldiers find the need to obey their drill sergeant. "Get that sling off you, tribute! You don't need it anymore! And take that splint off while you're fucking at it!"

With my mind and body on auto pilot, I ripped the sling and split off my body before throwing them to the floor. "What the hell, tribute?" I got scared, I was in trouble. "Pick up that god damn medical equipment and place it where it belongs!"

"Where-" I started, before the peacekeeper pointed to the bathroom.

"First aid kit! Now move your ass! Into the shower! Now, tribute! Now!"

Not wanting to make him wait, I ran past him, into the bathroom, threw the sling and splint into the open medical box, and ran into the shower stall. "Tribute!" He yelled angrily. "Why are you still in your clothes? You ashamed of your body? Huh? Are you?"

"No s-" I started, but got interrupted again.

"Take it off then! Take it all off!" He then started to name pieces of clothing material, and when a piece was mentioned, I took that item off and threw it out of the shower stall, but I was careful to not hit the peacekeeper with my clothes, who knows what he'd do if I did.

When I finished taking off all my clothes, I felt exposed and somewhat violated. I didn't like being naked in front of people, and this guy was one of the last people I wanted to feel exposed to. "Three minutes, tribute! Shower up!" He then slammed the stall door before I heard an electronic beep. A stop watch.

Not knowing what else to do, I looked at the futuristic shower and saw all these buttons and knobs that I could play around with. I didn't want to waste any time, so I just pushed the start button, only to be greeted with a powerful spray of glacier water. I screamed as I jumped away from the water.

_Holy fuck that's cold!_

I looked at the series of buttons, and saw that there was a button that said warm water. I leaped towards that button, getting a blast of cold water on me before the button got pushed, and within two agonizing seconds, the water turned for ice, to pleasant. _That's better._ I thought as I sighed in relief.

I let the warm water hit my body, letting it loosen up my body and let relief flood through me.

I gave another large sigh before I started to check out my body, wondering what kind of injures I had gotten. But to my surprise, there wasn't much to look at. I had expected gnarly scrapes and bruises, but whatever medicine I had received, it seemed to of made everything virtually disappear over night. There were only light purple bruises and angry red patches around my flesh. Looking up, I saw that there was a mirror in the shower. As odd as I thought it was, took a look at my face.

For the most part, my face was all right. Light bruises mostly, but there was a huge red mark across the better half of the right side of my face. _Did I get scrapped there?_ I thought as I thought of how my face hadn't felt that bad before. _Must __have__ been too focused on other parts of my body. Like my arm._

Yeah. That could be it.

Looking at myself in the mirror, I saw myself and compared myself to the other tributes. Slim body, but not as thin as Charity and the other non-careers, and I wasn't as big and tough looking, like the careers. Average for where I had came from. Light brown hair and green eyes. Average height. Nothing special about my facial features either. I wasn't pretty, or ugly, so all and all, an average guy.

Seeing the marks close to my mouth, I opened it to see how my teeth were doing. I was glad to see that they were all still intact and mostly straight. Just like it had been like before.

_Probably looked like a rotting turnip before Charity took care o-_ "Time's up!" A yell sounded out, breaking my train of thought before the sliding door was quickly ripped opened and a rough hand grabbed my left arm before I was pulled out of the shower stall. "Wipe yourself off, tribute!" The peacekeeper yelled as I felt something hit my face. I reached for it and realized that it was a towel.

I did as I was told and dried myself off, all while he was watching me. I tried to ignore it, but I couldn't help but notice that another man was watching me dry myself. "Faster!" He shouted. "Faster!" I then started to dry myself as swiftly as I could, but no matter how fast I went, he kept on screaming the same thing. For me to go faster.

When I finished drying myself off, I threw the towel onto a rack, and got an earful for it. "Throw that shit in the basket!" I quickly grabbed the towel and threw it into the nearby empty basket. "Do you need to use the toilet, tribute?"

"My name's J-"

"I'll ask again, tribute!" He shouted, like I had just insulted him. "Do you need to use the toilet?" Every time he shouted at me he would get super close, and whenever he did that, I feared that he was going to hurt me. I felt as if I was going to piss myself.

"Yes." I told him, not wanting to piss myself later. Or even now.

"Then use it, shit head!" I quickly obeyed.

Running to the toilet and lifting the lid, I tried to get myself to go, but I couldn't. Not with someone watching me.

I turned towards the peacekeeper and said.

"Could you n-"

"Why are you looking at me, tribute!" He roared. "Do you want me to stroke your dick? You want me to fucking suck your dick, tribute!"

"No si-"

"Then stop eye fucking me and get on with your business!"

_Can this get any worse?_

"GGGRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

I screamed as another strip of hair, and possibly my flesh was ripped off of me.

"Just one more and it'll be all-"

"AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"Done." _FINALLY! I thought this would never end._

Charity and my escort told me about this part. It was supposed to be for the chariot ride, where they parade the tributes around the Capitol, showing us off to everyone while dressing up in costumes. It was going to be like a Halloween parade, and we were going to tour the Capitol like it.

Charity told me that part. My escort told us that we were going to meet a prep team and a stylist before getting our costumes and going around the Capitol. The prep team's job was to make us presentable for our stylist, and our stylist's job was to make sure that we made an impact on the Capitol. Our first chance for sponsors, people that spent money on gifts that can be sent into the arena, for certain tributes.

I was told that sponsors could be the difference between life and death in the arena, but Charity told me to not get my hopes up for making an impact on the chariot session, because District Twelve costumes were usually the worst. The escort agreed.

From knowing that, and hearing the tormented wails and sobs of fellow tributes getting whatever treatment they were getting, I didn't think that getting a make over was worth it. This place sounded more like a torture chamber than a spa.

Still, I tried my best to stay calm. They rippled what little chest hair, arm hair, and leg hair that I had, along with an area so sensitive that if I hadn't peed earlier, I would of wet myself then and there. No doubt about it. It was so horrifically painful that I wanted to jump up and run, but restrains at the wrists and ankles kept me clamped down. I had a feeling that previous tributes had tried to run away and caused trouble for them. Couldn't say I blamed them.

My prep team of three threw the wax strippings and what appeared to be popsicle sticks into the trash. They then turned to me, smiling, tripping me out with their weird hair and ugly mutations. I looked at them and swore that they couldn't of willingly of done those things to themselves. I mean, red skin? Jewels inside their skin? Veins that looked like black tar mixed with specks of starlight? They looked like abominations, pure and simple.

Some Capitol folks looked all right, but there were some that just looked horrific. These three were prime examples. They scared me more than anything else. They looked like demons, ready to eat me and enjoy it.

"Now that the first stage is done, we can move onto the second stage." One of them, that had dog like teeth, told me.

"What's the second stage?" I asked, just before a loud hiss occurred.

"AHHHHHHH!" I heard a kid shout. "What are you doing?"

"Stay away from me!" I heard another yell as I heard something that sounded a lot like sizzling occur.

"Don't put that thing near m- AHHHHHHH!"

"Please try to ignore those." Dog teeth pleasantly told me, like it was no big deal. But the thing was, I was freaking out even more. The hissing, the sizzling, the screams, how could I stay calm when that was happening all around me?

I looked up and saw that my prep team was putting on what appeared to be dust masks before they put one around my mouth and nose. _Oh fuck._

_I need some pain killers._ I thought as I waited for my stylist to arrive.

The treatment that I had gone through was like torture. They used a variety of, what I thought were, harmful chemicals, a brush that was as hard as wire, a powerful hose, a buffer that felt like sand paper against my skin, and much more. They stabbed needles into me, saying that it was to control my teenage hormones. And they even tried to reconstruct my teeth, tried to make them straight. That was what I hated the most. Using a variety of tools, they forced my teeth to become straight. They did all that without any kind of medication to dull the pain.

I went through all that stuff in the name of being presentable. I never wanted to go through with that again.

And it wasn't just the pain that I went through, it was the screaming that I had heard from the other tributes. They were having just as much fun as I had been having. I could still hear them now, and it wasn't pleasant. The worst part about the treatments? There was no chance of escaping, you were trapped and forced to endure it. Even if you wanted them to stop, tried to tell them you didn't want anything more, or if you wanted to get up and run away from them, both were no good. They didn't listen, and you were strapped to the operating table. Pleasant.

Still... I rubbed the back of my neck and felt a smooth surface. It was nice, but was it worth it? Not really, I didn't really care for my looks anyway. I was fine the way I was. The way I had been. And the way I was feeling right now, sore, beaten, and exposed due to my lack of clothes. Just like I had been in the bathroom with that peacekeeper. _Wonder how Charity's doing._

"You must be my tribute." I heard a man with the same Capitol accent that everyone in the Capitol seemed to have. "What's your name kid? Your file seemed to be missing it."

"Joel." I answered, turning around to face him, only to come face to face with the most monstrous man I had ever laid eyes on. He was so hideously disfigured that mere words couldn't describe him. The best I could tell myself was that he was an alien trying, and failing, to look like a human. _Jesus. What happened to him?_

"Hello, Joel, I'm Jaxter, your stylist." He voice was just as deep and rugged as I imagined. He was slim, so it kind of didn't make sense that he'd have a voice like that.

"Great." I told him while trying not to look at him. I also tried not to think of him as one of those flesh eating monsters that he looked like he was.

I then felt one of his hands, rough and uncomfortable with sharp red nails digging into my cheeks, grab my face before twisting it side to side, examining me. I didn't like being touched by this guy, and even though my escort told me not to resist anything that my stylist and prep team did to me, I felt myself pulling away from this man-animal. But to my surprise, I couldn't move. Either I was frozen with fear or this guy was extremely strong. I wanted to think it was the former. I didn't want this guy to crush my skull and eat me.

While still holding my face, my stylist circled around me like a bird of prey. Looking at me like I was a meal that needed to be prepared before devouring. Feeling uncomfortable and exposed, I didn't like the way this man looked at me and circled around me. _Why are you looking at me like that?_

I didn't like this eerie silence, so I said the first question that came to my mind. "Uh... First year?"

"Fortunately not." He answered as he continued to examine me. "So don't worry, you're in good hands." _That should give me comfort._ I told myself. But the problem was, it didn't.

After some time, he finally let me go, to my instant relief. I reached for my face as he talked. "The prep team has done some fine work on you, Joel." He told me as he paced the room towards a solid oak table. "A shame that we can't work on the facial features of a tribute, but seeing as you have no facial hair, there's no reason why I should worry." He then pushed a button on the side of the table, and out popped a fine dinner. I wondered if that food had always been in that table, or if there was some kind of tunnel below the table. "So," He said as he sat down and started cutting his steak. "What do you know about the chariot tour?"

"We dress up in costumes that represent the district, and parade around the Capitol." I told him, recalling what I learned from both Charity and our escort.

"Correct." He said as he started to eat tiny pieces of his meat. "As you know, District Twelve's main industry and coal, and we need to have something that represents it somehow. As you probably remember, last year's costume was dynamite." _I don't remember,_ I thought. _Considering I'm not even from here and didn't arrive until __yesterday__._ "This year, we're planning something different."

"What is it?" I asked eagerly, wondering what I was going to wear so that I could stop standing around being naked.

"Well, we want you to be memorable, at least, memorable for the District Twelve chariot standards. And because the main industry is coal, we're going to have you be coal."

"Dressed as coal, huh." I said, thinking about the costume. "A bit dull, but I'm sure it'll be all right." _At least I'll be wearing something._

_Fuck!_

"Well this is certainly, um, different." Charity said in a way that I knew she was trying to lighten the mood. It wasn't working. "We might actually stand out, like our stylists said we would. After all, I think the last time they used this type of costume was around thirty years ago."

"Probably for a reason." I told her, not wanting to go out the way I was. It was too humiliating. So here I was, hiding behind closed doors and not wanting to come out until the chariot parade was over.

"Come on, Joel, it's not that bad."

"Not that bad?" I shouted as I waved my arms above my head, even though nobody but me could see it. "I'm naked! Covered with some black dust which I hope is not really coal! And your saying it's not that bad?" _When he said that I was going to be dressed like coal, that guy really meant it._ I thought that I was going to be wearing a black and rounded costume that made me look like a rock, but as it turns out, I AM the coal. And how could Charity be so calm about all this? Wasn't she even just the slightest bit self conscious?

"Could be worse." She casually told me. To which I burst out.

"Could be worse? I can't think of a single costume worse than what I am or am not wearing right now!"

"Joel," She said with a pleading voice. "Please. Can you just come out? The tour is going to start soon and I can't be seen out there by myself. It'll hurt District Twelve's chance for sponsors."

"Fuck sponsors!" I bluntly told her. "I'm not going out there where everyone can see me the way I am!" The thought of having an entire country looking at my black dust covered, naked body, absolutely terrified me. I thought that standing in front of my class to do a presentation was bad? That's nothing compared to the thought of this! I'd rather humiliate myself verbally than physically. "Go without me, I'll meet you at the president's mansion later." _With clothes._

I then heard Charity take a deep sigh.

"Look, Joel," She said in such a way that it sounded like my mom trying to comfort me. "I know that it's hard for you to go out the way you are right now."

"You think?" I deadpanned.

"But the thing is," She continued, like I hadn't said anything. "I'm just as scared as you are. Sure, I'm more used to it because of my upbringing, but there are twenty two other kids besides us. Districts One, Two, and Four, always have the best costumes with the best stylists. What makes you think that they'll stare at us the whole time?"

"Because we're naked?" I told her. You just couldn't resist looking at a naked person, no matter how bad it was. And even if tens of thousands of eyes were looking away from us, there's bound to be a hundred eyes that are looking at us. I felt myself shivering from that thought.

"Other than what I just said to you, I just want what's best right now. So you have a choice. Either you can come with me, right now, all peaceful like and with some kind of dignity. Or the peacekeepers can break this door down, chase you, and drag you out to the chariot with everyone watching you. Your choice."

I didn't like either of those choices. Either way, I was going to be forced to go out there, but one of them was going to make me look like I was willing to do it. So, did I was to humiliate myself, or did I really want to humiliate myself? Willingly or forced? _Which is the lesser of two evils, Joel?_

It didn't take long for me to reply.

"Fine." I sighed as I opened the door. Defeated. "I still don't like it though."

I tried not to look at Charity, knowing that she was in the same kind of stupid costume I was in.

"You can hide behind me if you want." She laughed. "But really, if you want, you can hide behind me when we're on the chariot." _Tempting offer._

"I'll give it some thought." I told her, though I really just might hide behind her, as pathetic as that sounds. "I just have one request."

"Which is?" She asked.

"Can we wait until the last minute to get onto our chariot? I don't want the other tributes to see me like this."

Silence occurred, telling me that Charity was thinking about it. _Please say yes. Please say yes. Please say yes._

"Sure. Why not?" _YES!_

Charity said that there were worse costumes to wear, but as I looked at the other awful costumes that some of the other kids were forced to wear... I still felt as if we had the worst costumes. The only thing that made me feel a little bit better was that some of the other costumes sucked.

The District Three tributes were key boards, the District Six tributes were upright trains, District Eight a couple of needles, it almost looked like their stylists were just as uncreative as the next. The only exception were the career tributes. District One had elegant robes and gold crowns and staffs, making them look like a king and queen. District Two had a set of deadly looking armour that fantasy warlords would be proud of. And District Four looked like the god and goddess of the sea.

Looking at them, I felt that Charity was right about them, they would be getting the most attention. But there would still be people looking at us, and that still worried me. _At least it won't be everyone._ I told myself, trying to make the most of it.

"If you look at the careers right now," Charity said as she pointed to the six, best costumed tributes. "You'll see that they're all together."

I looked again, and saw that she was right. All six of them were talking to each other, like group of friends. Except, at the same time, not. It was like three groups of friends talking to each other. They tolerated each other and acted friendly, and while they worked together, there was no denying that they would sever that alliance when needed. "That's the foundation of the career pack." She explained. "It might get bigger, it might get smaller. Sometimes a non-career get invited to join them, sometimes a career is found unworthy to be in the pack. But most of the time, it's those six working together."

I looked at the other kids, and saw that they mostly scurried around like lost kids. Much like how I felt just being here.

"Are there other alliances?" I asked, seeing as there was only an alliance between the careers, and ourselves.

"Doesn't look like it." She told me. "I don't think non-careers make alliances this early unless its either established, like the career pack, or if they're district partner, like us."

"I see." I said, seeing that it made sense. You didn't know anyone else, and they never agreed on allies before hand.

"All tributes to their chariot!" A voice boomed from what seemed to be every direction. "I repeat! All tributes to their chariot! Two minutes until launch!"

"Time for us to go." Charity announced. All I could do was groan. _Do I have to?_ "Come on!" She insisted, grabbing my wrist and pulled me out of my safe place before I could protest. "It's not that bad." She said as she dragged me along. _Not so bad._ I thought sarcastically as I thought I saw many pairs of eyes turn towards us. _Yeah. Sure. Easy for you to say, you don't seem to be bothered with this for some reason._ Which made me wonder, why was Charity not bothered by the whole nudity thing?

The run seemed to be an hour long, but we made it. With the help of our stylists, after they said that they were worried that we weren't going to show up, they helped us into the chariot. "Yeah," Charity said, like it was no big deal. "Joel's just afraid of showing his body in front of everyone."

"Hey!" I shouted, offended at that. "Unlike you, I'm not someone that can just be comfortable with this."

"As I said," She sweetly told me in a joking matter. "You can hide behind me if you want." That caused both stylists to laugh. I felt even more embarrassed.

"Well just remember this you two," Charity's stylist, a woman that was far less hideous than my prep team and stylist, advised us. "Wave, and try to look friendly."

"Got it." Charity told them confidently.

"I'll try." I admitted. _Probably either be hiding behind Charity, or hiding on this chariot cart floor._

"Excellent." The stylist cheered. That's when I noticed that the two of them were walking away. I turned and noticed that there was no driver directing our horses. I turned back towards them, to see that they were too far away to hear what I was going to say. So I turned to my district partner, but was careful to only look at her face, and asked her.

"If they're not going to direct the horses, who is?"

"The horses lead themselves." She explained. "I don't know how, but they just do."

"Right." I said in disbelief. "Right."

"Look ahead if you don't believe me." I did, and saw that everyone else had horses that weren't being directed by anyone. I thought it was strange. How could a horse go around a city without a driver? Even more unbelievable, was that the District One and Two chariots had already pulled out, and the horses seemed to be managing perfectly fine. Like they knew the path that they were supposed to take.

"How?" I asked, wondering how this was possible. To which Charity only shrugged her shoulders.

"Trained. Mind controlled. I don't know." She admitted. "Your guess is as good as mine."

As more and more chariots rolled out, I felt more and more nervous, and felt myself getting dizzy, hot, and surprisingly, sweaty through those thick layers of black whatever. _Everyone's going to see me. All of me!_ The only consolation was that nobody I knew was going to see me like this. But the fact that the rest of these people's world was going to see me...

I felt a hand land on my right shoulder, and just about jumped in fright. I looked over and saw Charity's hand on my shoulder. Charity smiled warmly as she gently squeezed my shoulder. "Hey, you'll do fine." She encouragingly told me. I wished that it was true.

Finally, it was our turn to move. The anxiety inside me continued to rise, until we came out of the tunnel and were in full sight of a cheering crowd. I did my best to hold in a scream, and I think I let a little of it out, but for the most part, kept it in.

As I looked around, I couldn't help but think of all the eyes looking at us now. I couldn't stop thinking about how I looked, and how people were probably pointing at us, laughing. It felt like being at the front of the class, but a billion times worse. I couldn't help but hide behind Charity.

She quickly noticed it, and laughed.

"It's not funny." I hissed as Charity waved and smiled at the crowds. _How the hell are you so calm?_

"I'm just thinking of how we're opposites now." She told me.

"Opposites?" I asked. "How?"

"Back on the train, you were the brave one." She explained as she reached around, grabbed my arm, and forced me to do a one handed wave. It felt silly, but I didn't resist. "You tried to escape, while I just stayed in my room, too scared to go out and have a shot at freedom."

The guilt came back to me as I thought of how I had looked in her room, saw nothing that interested me, and left. But at the same time, she didn't get injured, like I had. I wasn't allowed to put any of that cream on myself, so I still had those bruises, and they still ached a little. Especially my right arm.

"It was stupid." I told her, thinking of what it lead me to. "I was scared and confused. Still am."

"Must be hard not remembering." She said with sympathy. I nodded my head, but probably not for the reason she was thinking. It was hard for me, but not because I couldn't remember, but because this wasn't the place I was born and raised in. It wasn't even the right time period. It probably wasn't even the right reality. It was hard because this wasn't my way of life. "But hopefully, you'll remember and it won't be so scary anymore." _I could only wish._

Charity continued to wave. "And now, I'm the brave one. Shielding you from watching eyes and you standing right behind me." I couldn't help but look towards the floor in shame. "It's okay though, because life is scary, and you won't know how to deal with it all the time. You just have to make the most of it."

A pause came between us. She continued. "Anyway, after this is training days."

"Training days?" I asked. "For what?"

"For learning how to use weapons, survival tactics, those kinds of things."

"Is it bad?" I asked, thinking about how in just two days I've jumped from a fast moving train, got beaten by peacekeepers, got tortured in the name of beauty, and exposed myself to the world. What was next on that list?

"I don't know." She bluntly told me. "We try to learn some things, no big deal. Are you good with any weapons?" I thought back to the pretend sword fights that my friends and I used to do, and thought of how if we had had real swords, our fights would of been over quite quickly. Most likely it'd result in a mutual kill.

"I don't know." I answered honestly.

"Are you good with survival techniques?" Again, I thought of surviving in the wild, but I've never really done it. There were those simple survival strategies that I learned in school, but that was about it.

"I might know a little." I told her.

"Great," She said. "Tomorrow, let's focus on learning some new things."

"Sounds good to me."


	4. Learning the ropes

My escort made fun of me for hiding behind Charity during the chariot ride, not that I cared. She wasn't there, and she hadn't been the one to do it. Something told me that if it had been her doing the same thing, she wouldn't have thought that it was so funny. If she were the one that were in the game instead of me, she wouldn't of thought of this whole thing as entertaining.

But as I thought of that, I thought of how I was almost the same as her. The way that I played video games and watched movies about war and people getting killed. Watching those types of things for entertainment. Just like she was doing. The only thing that was different between the two of us was that I knew what was real and what wasn't. Call of Duty wasn't real. Movies weren't real. But this game, this game was real. That's what made her different from me. What I enjoyed was fake, what she enjoyed was real.

It was messed up. How could someone look forward to watching kids killing kids right in front of them? But again, the line between violence and entertainment was always thin, even back home. At school, if there was a fight going on, everyone would gather around and watch the two, or three, or more, kids fighting while cheering them on. Kids would be shouting, encouraging, recording, doing everything but stopping them.

The only thing that got it to stop being entertainment was when someone got involved in the fight. If you got caught in the middle of it, if you suddenly became a victim, that's when the entertainment stopped. All the more fun for the other kids that weren't part of the fight. The same with street fighting. The more violent, bloody, and damaged the other guy was, the better. As long as you weren't the guy that got beaten.

I just assumed that it was the same here. If our escort somehow went into the arena with us, she'd stop finding it so entertaining so fast it wouldn't even be funny. But that probably wouldn't happen, so she was going to continue to act the way she did.

Charity was more supportive though. She said that not everyone could handle something like we had done, and she didn't say it sarcastically either. I was glad that at least one person was with me.

As for sponsors, our escort told us that my performance had hurt us. Sponsors weren't looking for scared little kids, or older kids, so because of that, we lost potential help. I didn't care, there was no way that I was going to want to go through something like that again. And sponsors, from what I heard from Charity, they weren't interested in District Twelve anyway. District Twelve lacked winners, offered tributes that died early. They didn't want to bet money on a dead horse. So I didn't see the difference if I had acted the way I did or not.

Again, I didn't sleep well at night. After apply some of that healing cream on myself, I couldn't get the thought of what people were thinking of my 'costume'. Those thoughts kept me up for a long time. And by the time that I felt myself fall asleep, it felt as if I had just fallen asleep before that drill sergeant peacekeeper woke me up by shouting a swearing at me.

He ordered me to get showered, dressed in what I thought were gym clothes, and marched me over to the breakfast table, with Charity coming out right behind me. They got us to sit down before they left us alone, as well as they could. They were still in the room, close to us, but they weren't in our faces at least.

I then got explained the training days by both the escort and Charity. Three days to learn how to fight and survive, just like Charity had told me yesterday. It was three days, and then on the third day, it was a half day of training, then a private session to show to the gamemakers what we had learned.

I asked what gamemakers were, and I was told that they were the people in the Capitol that ran the Hunger Games. I couldn't help but think that we were showing our skills to have the gamemakers try to pick something that would affect us. Like if three people were good with crossbows, they'd only put one of those in. Have those three fight for it, or just have one person get it while the other two had to make due.

Charity and I ate some of our breakfast before peacekeepers ripped the food away from us and forced us to the elevator and pushed the button towards the training room.

"I think I'm going to be sick." Charity said as the elevator brought us down.

"Why?" I asked. We didn't even eat that much that fast. How could she possibly be sick?

"I feel my stomach rising." She answered, to which I knew why she was feeling that.

"That's the elevator's movement." I explained to her. "I don't really know why it does that, but I think it has something to do with that we're moving down."

"Oh." She simply said as we continued to descend towards our destination.

It didn't take long for us to arrive at the training floor. As soon as the elevator doors opened, the four peacekeepers beside us shoved us out of the elevator and walked us towards an athletic looking, black man with short hair and gym clothes. I took a look around to see that the other tributes from the other districts were arriving at the same time as we were. Peacekeepers marching them forward.

Taking a quick look at all of them, I saw that most those from non-career districts were even thinner looking, now that they were out of those stupid costumes. There were exceptions, but again, none of them looked as healthy as the careers, and to a point, me.

I was not like the careers though. I was healthy because I got enough to eat, but that was about it. The careers looked like athletes, people that worked out for a living, gym rats.

I looked to my left, past Charity, and saw the District Eleven tributes. Soya and Trail.

Remembering from the files, Soya was fourteen, while Trail was eighteen. The two both had dark skin, brown eyes, and black hair, but that's where their appearances stopped being similar. For one thing, Soya was thin and light looking with tightly knotted corn row braided hair. Latin American.

Trail looked like a body builder that burnt more calories than he consumed. Tall and muscular with short cut hair and narrow eyes, he looked intimidating. He looked like he had burn marks over his body, like he had been sunburnt. I guessed that he was of South Asian decent mixed with some Western country.

The peacekeepers got everyone to their places before the black man introduced himself as Crew, the main instructor for the training room. He then proceeded to tell us about the various weapon and survival stations that were available for all.

He explained the obstacle courses, the safety rules, and the policy for tributes fighting each other. They could only fight if the instructors were around to direct the fight. I couldn't help but think that the only people that would want to fight others at this stage were the careers. I looked over to that group and saw that they were smiling. If what Charity said was true about careers training before the games, even though it was illegal, then that careers were right at home.

"Dismissed!" Crew shouted before the careers broke off and went over the weapon stations and started to show off their skills before the rest of the tributes wondered where to go. Though it didn't take long for the District Seven tributes to go over to the axes.

"Where should we go first?" I asked, wondering what we should work on first.

"Survival comes first." Charity told me. "So I think we should try one of those stations."

"All right." I said, agreeing with her. "Which one? There's shelter building, fire building, traps, foliage, camouflage, and first aid."

"You said you knew a little about shelter building. Show me what you know."

We then headed over to the shelter building, and I showed Charity what I learned from school. Making a homemade bed out of leaves, sticks, and other woodland objects.

"And that's all I know." I told her, thinking of how stupid I must seem. Charity had gotten all excited to see what I knew, and this was it.

"It's something." She said, trying to make the best of the situation, though I could see that she was a little disappointed.

"I would show you how to build a tent out of sticks and branches and stuff," I explained, trying to redeem myself. "But it never seems to work out for me."

"Show me how you build it." The instructor of the course said.

I got out of my homemade bed, which had been surprisingly comfortable, and tried to build a tent out of large sticks and branches. But at a certain point in the construction, the tent collapsed, ruining all my hard work. "I see what the problem is." The instructor told me as he picked up my sticks and shoved them into the fake dirt. "Your not sticking them in at the right angle, and your not tying the sticks together right."

He then demonstrated how to properly build a tent, and when he finished, he got us to try it out.

For the next hour, Charity and I worked on building our homemade tent. And we eventually got ours to stand up. It wasn't as good as our instructor's, but it stood up, and we were proud of getting that far.

The next problem we faced for our tent was that if it got windy, our tent would lose all its cover, so for the next hour, we learned how to apply sap on our tent coverings. By the time that hour was up, our hands and arms and parts of our faces were covered with the sticky substance. A wash of hot water and soap got rid of it, but we had to scrub hard.

"So you know what I know." I told her, wondering what she was good at. "Let's see what you've got."

She then led me to the first aid station, where she demonstrated enough skill to be a fully qualified nurse. She bandaged, apply dressing, stitches, splints, injections, and everything else I could think of. "How to you know all this?" I asked as she put away some of the equipment in front of her.

"I run a medical aid station." She explained. "Injuries are common in District Twelve, so I do what I can to help them."

"But don't you have a doctor or something?" I asked, thinking that she couldn't be the person that everyone went to every time there was an injury.

"I am the doctor." She told me, causing me to be even more surprised.

"Are you the only one?" I asked.

"The only one." She answered sadly. She didn't seem too happy about it. "For me, it's hard to get people to stay, because the job doesn't pay well, and you have to deal with so much. People always coming and going, and when you think that the day might end, it doesn't. I work all day and night, helping people that need me."

"Sounds rough." I told her, thinking of how she must work so hard for a district that's so filled with poverty and hard work that she must see some horrific things that kids shouldn't have to see. "Do your parents help you?"

Charity shook her head.

"I work alone. My parents are too busy to help me. They have to work so that I can live as well. Medicine isn't free after all. And when my parent's aren't working, they're asleep. They have to work all day, because they're an independent businesses of a sort. They wash clothes for a living. They're the best price in the district because all they have is a washboard. Merchant class washers have more effective methods, but are more expensive. So the day's pay depends on how many loads they can wash."

I couldn't help but feel that the kids in this world were forced to grow up fast. If this was Charity's case, what were the other kids like? The careers were growing up to be modern day gladiators, while the other kids had to find some way to survive. "Anyway," Charity said with her cheery attitude, as if we weren't just talking about some rough childhood living. "I'll teach you some of the basics that you need to know."

We practiced first aid until it was time for lunch. By that time, I had learned some things about first aid.

As we sat down for lunch, Charity and I noticed that the only tributes that sat together were us and the careers. Everyone else sat alone.

Charity and I studied them. And by the time lunch was done, we had agreed on a few things.

From the way that Grey of District Two carried himself, he was undoubtedly the leader of the group, as Charity had expected. Most of the time, it was the District Two male that was the proud leader of the career pack. And Grey, the way he seemed to challenge everyone in the pack made me think of an alpha wolf. Alpha would be the strongest, and anyone that wanted to be the top dog would have to get past him. Grey was the same. Every time one of the careers would do something that he didn't like, he'd challenge them on it.

Superiority complex. Arrogant. Intimidation. That was Grey's attitude in a nut shell.

Price was like a whiny kid that tried to get Grey to see his way. He tried to bribe his way though, with either words or other means, but Grey wouldn't have any of it. He was their leader, and his was sticking to that status.

Radiance would challenge Grey, but would never get far. Same with Grey's district partner, Revolist. Those two girls looked like they'd like to fight over the position of leadership, but wouldn't. Probably because Grey was bigger than the two of them combined.

Tide and Squall, the District Four tributes, didn't do anything to challenge Grey. They just sat there, quietly, watching the four other careers fight among themselves. Though Tide was different than Squall, because while Tide, despite being a girl, seemed strong enough to challenge Grey in a fight, just looked like the submissive type. And from the way she looked around, it almost seemed that she didn't even know where she was.

When lunch ended, the two of us went over to the foliage station, where we meet up with another tribute, Harvest. The boy from District Nine.

"Hey there." Charity called to him as we approached. Harvest turned around, and we were greeted with a quiet greeting.

"Oh, hi." He said before turning back towards his collection of seeds.

"What's going on?" Charity asked, trying to get friendly with him.

"Nothing." He said quietly, shyly. "Just. Thinking."

"Thinking of what?" Charity asked.

"Home." He answered simply.

"These seeds remind you of home?" Charity asked as she picked up a handful of seeds.

"Yeah." Harvest answered. "Crows really liked those seeds."

All of a sudden, that kid started to cry a second before he walked away from us. It was strange to see a seventeen year old kid just get up and leave like that. And what was that all about? It was just seeds. I didn't see what the big deal was.

"What was that all about?" I asked Charity, looking back to her, only to see that she seemed to have an understanding. She had that look that she had when she was treating those mannequins. A look of sadness. "Charity?" I asked, before she broke out of her trance.

"Oh." She said, like she was coming to. "Sorry. What was that, Joel?"

"He just walked away, eyes tearing up. And you just spaced out like that. Is there something that I should know?"

"Oh, no." She answered. "He probably just misses home, and the stuff about the crows, it probably got to him. And when I thought of that, I thought of home as well."

Okay, I guess that makes sense. I missed home as well, so I could understand.

"Okay." I said, putting the strange situation behind me.

We then worked on identifying edible foliage for a while before moving on to traps. We spent the rest of the day figuring out how to do traps before our time in the training center was up. When that happened, peacekeepers gathered everyone up and marched them back to their floors.

As we were riding up the elevator, I had a thought. A thought about training, and the careers, but also some of the stronger looking tributes. "Charity."

"Yes?"

"I'm just thinking about our training."

"Oh?" She said in wonder.

"I'm thinking about how we only have a limited time in the training center to learn thing and improve. And as far as I see, we need to build up on our fitness as well. And as far as we agreed, we'd use the second day to get familiar with what kinds of weapons we'd want to use."

"So what are you saying?" Charity asked. "We use the third day for fitness?"

"No." I told her. "I'm thinking about using the time we're not in the training center to build up our strength and speed. We train while we're up on our floor." Understanding came across Charity's eyes as we got to our floor. "We have to get as good as we can so that the other tributes won't be as much of a threat when we get into a fight, or have to run away. So I say we build up our strength and get our stamina up."

Charity smiled, and I couldn't help but think of how great she looked when she smiled.

"I like the way you think." She said as we got off on our floor.


End file.
